After The Fall
by Diesa
Summary: How our favorite characters are handling the time after the witch


The time after the defeat of the sorceress was a hectic one. The first thing the Queen did was issue a proclamation that all longcoats that turned themselves in of their own free will, would if found to have only been protecting themselves and their families by becoming a longcoat be cleared of all charges and acquitted of all charges brought against them.

The friendship between the four heroes of the eclipse, as they had become known through out the kingdom, only grew the longer they were together. After an annual of discussing the subject and researching every which way they could, the alchemist had determined there was no safe way to return Glitch's brain to him. It still sat in a tank waiting for the day that it might be able to be returned.

Raw came and went going between his home in the east and the different palaces around the OZ. Wherever the royal family happened to be at the time he would visit for short amounts of time finding it difficult to be around Azkadellia for very long. With all the turmoil she was going through, her emotions rolled off her in waves causing him distress.

DG had yet to really fall into the role of being a princess. There were constant arguments about the way she dressed and the way she acted, not to mention her attitude towards each and ever suitor that had presented themselves at the palace and knew she would have to make her move soon before a marriage was forced on her. She planned to make her move in the next couple of days.

Cain planned on returning permanently to the little cabin where he and Adora had spent there life and raised Jeb. But every time he made plans to do so, the queen or DG would ask something of him and he wasn't the type of person to say no to a request from his Queen, his thought better a request than an order. He had a feeling DG was doing everything she could to keep him close by, why he was not sure of, but would find out one way or another.

At the two annual mark things were looking very bright for the small kingdom. The queen had started planning a celebratory ball, and now that things were more settled the destruction of the witches dark tower, that was leaving a blight on the face of her now thriving kingdom. Once that was done she could turn the crown over to DG since Azkadellia felt that nobody in the kingdom would see her as a proper ruler. Before the tower would be destroyed though she sent Cain and a small detachment to go through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure nothing was left inside.

Cain and DG had argued about her staying when he went to the tower, his reasoning was there was no telling what traps still lay inside the tower. He was about feed up with DG she always seemed to want to be wherever he was and it was getting on his last nerve. He could not get it through to her that they may be friends and when together he would protect her with his life, but that that was as far as their relationship went.

Cain had the map of the tower that had been drawn up for them laid out on a table in the foyer. As the men reported back to him, he marked the places searched off the map. They were waiting on the last person, a Private Dodsworth, to return. Then the dungeon was going to be searched as a group, even though all the prisoners had been released within the days after the eclipse there were still places they had yet to get into.

Cain looked up from the map to see the Private return.

"We are going to start at the back of the dungeons and work our ways forward. The Princess has indicated there are rooms here in the back," he said pointing to what seemed to be a solid wall on the map, "the door is triggered by a lever somewhere on this wall, but she could not tell me exactly where. So be cautious."

The small troop of men made their way down the narrow stairway keeping watch for anything that could trigger a booby trap. Cain divided them up into two man teams. To make the search faster, he tried to make the teams as even as possible paring one senior officer with a junior officer. Just as the last team stepped away the young corporal tripped over a stone sticking out of the floor and caught himself on the very wall Cain had warned them about and his hand sunk into the wall, only for them to hear a popping a noise and the door they had been trying to find opened slightly. Before any of them could move to grab the door it started to open on its own and every member of the team had weapons drawn as the door creaked open, out fell one of the tin suits that the sorceress had used. It hit the ground hard making a loud banging noise.

Cain looked at the suit in horror. He still had nightmares about being in that thing not that he would let on to anybody that he had them. "Get this thing turned over," he ordered and the men scrambled to do as he said. "Find me something to get it open.," he said as he bent down to look through the small window on the front of the only to find it blocked out so he could not see in causing him to wonder who had pissed off the sorceress so bad they had been locked up like that.

The complete perceptual isolation was throwing him for a loop. He could not think of anybody that was against the sorceress that had not been found either alive or dead. So who in the hell could be inside. Private Dodsworth was the first to return with a hammer to remove the pins keeping it closed.

Cain took the hammer from the private and quickly removed the pins keeping the suit shut, but it did not even open the slightest when the last pin was removed. The hinges seemed frozen. "You two," Cain said motioning towards the two closest soldiers, "help me get this damn thing open."

He pushed from the opening side while the two soldiers pulled from the other side. Slowly it began to open. The smell that accompanied the opening of the cursed contraption was so rancid Cain could hear a few of the soldiers behind him losing there lunches and thanked the cosmos for small miracles that his had been out in the open to keep DG and Glitch from having the same reaction as the green soldiers behind him were currently experiencing.

The first thing he noticed was the occupant was most definitely female. Her hair luckily covered her where she needed it be so the young men under his command would not be gawking. Pulling his coat off he covered her with it to give some sort of privacy. Before he could move her hair out of the way to get a good look at the prisoner's face, he stumbled back in shock.

"Do you know her, sir?" One of the soldiers who had helped him open the suit.

He just looked at the suit in horror and not able to find his voice.

"Well who is she?" another asked.

Cain looked at the suit and then at the soldiers before answering "My Wife."


End file.
